Gear to play MP3 files.

[musicm8]

Hello all,

At my uncle's request I have spent the last 6 months ripping his CD collection many of which was his own burned mixed CDs Etc. The result is about 15 GB of music files that he would like to be able to play on a compact high-end system once moving into a retirement residence Etc. He's getting rid of all his other gear to make sure he can bring his music with him into a home.

He's very technically unsavvy and his key concerns would be user-friendly operation good sound quality and compact design. He would also like to be able to listen to the radio and grow is digital music collection by adding additional MP3 files as necessary.

Can you help me understand what options might be available to achieve something like this? I'm totally green to this type of system and I have no idea where to start. I'm pretty technically savvy but don't have a lot of experience in this area as I love my LP and CD and iPod music collection just as they are.

Any help you can provide would be awesome!

Les

 

[cpt_paranoia]

At my uncle's request I have spent the last 6 months ripping his CD collection many of which was his own burned mixed CDs Etc.

Please tell me you didn't rip directly to MP3. Please tell me that you ripped to a lossless format...

I would start by reading some of the threads on this sub-forum:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?forums/pcs-music-servers.122/

If all you have is 15GB, that would easily fit on a modern tablet, either internally, or on a microSD card. Then you could use a media player app, and stream wirelessly to a little renderer connected to the existing amp. There are plenty of choices for this.

e.g. Android tablet, running the BubbleUPnP app, streaming to a Google Chromecast Audio (CCA) dongle, with analogue output to an Aux input on the amplifier. That will get you going. If you find that the audio quality of the CCA isn't enough, you can take its optical SPDIF digital output to a good DAC (bypassing the CCA's internal DAC). But, if your files are MP3, they might be the limiting factor on audio quality.

Or you could buy a cheap Windows 8.1 tablet, and install MusicBee, which will provide a similar function, but also provides an 'Auto-DJ' function, selecting music tracks to play at random, so there is no need to keep selecting what music to play.

I am assuming your uncle has a WiFi router; if not, these can be bought very cheaply.